Life After Her
by IgNighted
Summary: Some wounds take time to heal. Gale Hawthorne's life after the war.


**So my first story for the fandom. I thought I'd take a look at Gale Hawthorne, and sort of how I imagined his life after the war to be like.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.**

* * *

It's so similar it sometimes takes his breath away. The mountains, the forests, the ruins, and loath as he is to admit it, even the people are the same. The men and women and children of District 2 aren't so far off from the ones back home.

No, not home, he corrects himself. This is home now. And District 12 is a memory.

He's a Captain in the District 2 garrison, there with a dozen other officers from 8 and 13 and 1. He lives in the barracks on the south end of the District, his family have a small townhouse to themselves just a block down from the main roads. He eats with them every night before heading off to his quarters. In the mornings, he downs a sharp tasting drink they call coffee which kept him awake after the rough nights, and heads out for the day, tracking down insurgents in the mountains, loyalists of the old regime.

He fights, bleeds, and sweats for this place. That might as well make it home. It doesn't have coal powder dusting the walls and roofs of the houses and offices, it doesn't have narrow streets and dirt paths, a slap heap, a familiar hewed down stump, or the old faded pink sweet shop he would sometimes walk Posy and Vick by. It doesn't really matter. It has a school his siblings can go to. It has an inn his mother can work at. It has a job he can do, wants to do, and the possibility of advancement. It provides, and there's nothing more important than that.

He can do without the tree stumps, sweet shops, and coal dust. But it also doesn't have her.

Gale never got the impression that Plutarch liked him much. Or maybe he was just projecting his own feelings about the man back unto him. Plutarch smiled falsely. He flattered, made jokes, and seemed happy enough to smirk and shake hands and make quips. But there was something he couldn't figure out underneath that sweaty, pale skin and Gale could barely stand to be in his company for very long. Thankfully, he didn't have to.

District 2 was where Paylor wanted him, Plutarch had said. A captaincy for him, a job hunting down insurgents and rebels hidden in the mountains, and keeping the new District 2 loyal.

Hunting down old followers of Snow? That he could do. Anyone trying to restore Snow's old ways he would find and crush, without mercy, and without qualms. Plutarch prattled on about sending his family with him, how at home he might find himself in Two, the President's trust in him, how Gale had plenty of chances to rise high now in new regime they were building. When the official paperwork was signed, Plutarch extended a sweaty palm and shook his hand, offering an oily smile.

"By the way," he asked, as Gale buttoned up his coat and prepared to head out. "What did you think of the trial?"

"You certainly made quite a show of it," he grunted in response. He couldn't figure Plutarch's game, putting that trial on every screen in Panem. The witnesses called, the defence statements, the dozens of testimonies on behalf of the prosecution and the defence. Gale had never seen anything like it. She had a way of inspiring that, creating things no one else had seen.

"Heh, well, a bit of theatre never hurt anyone," Plutarch said modestly, as if it were a compliment. "Your testimony certainly helped. Panem's new hero, advocating on behalf of his beloved cousin."

He was mocking him, and Gale had no patience for that. He grunted a farewell and turned to leave.

"You and Peeta Mellark of course. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room when he was called to court."

That gave him pause, right at the door. He turned to face Plutarch, who was still smiling like he had a juicy secret to share.

"He's leaving today you know. Was medically cleared."

"Peeta?" He didn't know why that surprised him. He hadn't seen him properly since they split up at Tigris's shop. Seen him on the TV for Katniss's trial, but they never met, didn't speak. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Just thought you might want to know," Plutarch shrugged. "Your assignment in 2 could take years. Unlikely you'll run into a lot of people from home." He gestured with his hand, a rude kind of dismissal, and despite his surprise, Gale shuffled out.

Plutarch, he thought to himself, he would never be able to figure out.

* * *

He woke in the night with a gasp, his sudden movement walking the body next to him. He panted hard, the images still reeling in his head.

"What's wrong Gale?" came a sleepy voice.

Ran. A soldier from District 13, and a sergeant in one of the task forces in District 2. She had pale skin, dark hair, and didn't take flak from any of fellow soldiers in the garrison, and not from him either, when he criticized her on her being late. It wasn't long before they found themselves in this kind of situation, wrapped around each other at night.

"Nothing, go to sleep," he muttered, drinking water from his bedside table. She pushed herself up by one arm, reached out to touch him with the other. "I'm fine," he affirmed. He curled back down next to her, pulling up the sheets again as she nestled closer to him.

"I wish you'd tell me." He had heard that before. From Lys, a secretary in the Capitol, and then from Moira, a press aide come to cover the work in District 2. He told Ran the same thing he told them.

"It's nothing Ran. Just a dream." Nightmare really. Of fire and screams. Children, blonde hair and doctors. Her.

She used to get nightmares too. He was never there for them, but he heard about them from her mother. But she didn't face them alone. In that cafeteria, with a twisted smirk, Peeta Mellark asked her about those nights they shared on the train. The Victory Tour he assumed. He almost dismissed them as the ravings of a man who was completely lost and scrambled, who just wanted to hurt him, but she hadn't denied it. Something in her eyes changed when he brought it up.

It tortured him then. The implications. Shared nights while they were engaged and alone. He couldn't bring himself to ever ask about it. He was sure she'd tell him it wasn't his business anyways. He buried those thoughts then, and he could bury them now.

Ran didn't look convinced, but he rolled over on top of her and kissed her breathless, and suddenly she wasn't so interest in his sleep anymore.

Gale doubted it would last. It hadn't with the others. Maybe it never would. But Ran was fun and comfortable to be around, and he so badly needed this. Needed to erase the sneer of a blonde mutt and a girl with eyes like silver.

* * *

The Capitol Wellness and Personal Health Institute was one of the many buildings converted by the new regime for a less luxurious purpose. Built on the outskirts of the Capitol, closer to the lakes and mountains, it was once supposedly a place for Capitol citizens to spend money staying at while they were attended to avoxes. Now, it was something of a hospital. But not like any hospital like Gale had ever seen. People there weren't treated for bullet wounds and scars, well, at least not scars on the outside. The patients Gale saw there looked to be in varying degrees of decent physical health. Their eyes told a different story. Some were wild and frightened. Others were cold and hollow. Some couldn't move, despite there being no splints or casts about their legs. Some couldn't be still at all, others couldn't sleep, and some speak incessantly.

There were no more avoxes that Gale could see, at least not among the staff. They all wore clinical white coats as they strode down the gilded, beautiful halls. A nurse was walking him towards a room, and there, through the window, he could see him.

He was outside, seated and painting on a canvas. Scenery it looked like. He was so engrossed in his work he didn't notice him. He looked well enough. Healthy, well fed. His cheeks and eyes weren't gaunt and hollow anymore. His frame was more filled out again. His expression as he painted was concentrated, but not fierce or hateful. His hands and arms had burn marks all the way up to his elbow, but it was healed, with only the scars remaining.

He didn't know why he came. He couldn't go outside, couldn't _bring_ himself to go outside and see him. Why was he here?

"How is he?" He settled on asking to the nurse, who was looking ever more puzzled by his silence and reticence to go and see the patient he asked for.

"He's well. He eats his meals, he brushes and bathes, he exercises daily, he paints and bakes and cooks," she tells him, Gale nodding along. "You can go and see him if you like. He's safe to be around. He talks with the other patients and staff regularly, we take him on trips into the city to socialize. He doesn't present any danger."

"No, that's fine." He doesn't know why he came, but somehow he feels better that he did. He walks past the bewildered nurse, out the way he came.

He has never known what to think of Peeta Mellark. Once he might have said that they could be friends, in another world at least. He used to think he was weak, a liability. But anyone who could kill a giant like Brutus in the arena wasn't weak, baking and painting aside. He wasn't a deadweight either, though it took time to appreciate Peeta's foresight and thinking. During the war, he spoke about a cease-fire, and misinformation or not, duress or not, Gale knew that part of Peeta believed those words, and that Gale didn't know if he could forgive. Until he warned them about the bombs.

He spoke at the trial. In the last week of it, he was called to the stand, eyes and voice clear. Plutarch was right, there wasn't a dry eye in the room or across Panem when he was finished. It might have made all the difference, and for that he was grateful.

Peeta Mellark was hard to figure out, and somehow hard to hate, even after everything. Gale didn't want to be his friend, couldn't possibly be his friend. But he was glad he was okay.

* * *

His record in District 2 was excellent. He had snuffed out several loyalist cells, had kept District 2 firmly in the grip of the new regime, and the local population was obedient. Not friendly, but obedient. And he couldn't care if they were friendly to him or not. District 2 had sided with the Capitol. The people he supervised were once shooting at him, and he couldn't forget that. Even the District 2 rebels were less than fond of him, doubtless something their former leader Lyme had passed onto them. He wasn't fond of them either. District 2 was an enemy he had to ensnare and hold in place until it was tamed. They were faithless when they sided with the Capitol, and so he felt no need to treat them any better than they deserved.

But those notions were challenged when a brick went crashing through his window.

It was during dinner, and his mother shrieked and his siblings dove under the table. He went outside despite their calls to stay in, and soon the garrison came to investigate the matter. He had security placed around his home while he personally attended to finding the culprit.

Some former Peacekeeper maybe, a Snow loyalist, or even a former Career from their now closed private training institute.

It was a 14 year old girl. Small, skinny, and alone, ran away from the orphanage. They brought her back to it, and apologies were made to him. She was angry and lashing out. Her older brother had been in the Nut.

He dropped the charges and moved on. Something about the hate in her eyes unnerving him.

He noticed the looks he got in the street now. Resentment, hatred, pain. Like he was a bad memory walking amongst men. He felt less sure of himself, because it wasn't just resentful loyalists now. Widows and orphans joined that chorus of hatred against him. Even the soldiers from Two who served him, they obeyed, but offered nothing else. To each other they were warm and loyal, hard-working and helpful. He saw that, but they didn't show it to him.

The Nut had to be brought down, he told himself. He only did what was necessary. It was war and people died in war. it wasn't personal.

But wasn't it? The thought came to him four years since he had been in the District. Was it not personal? Actions in war could be forgiven, the collapse of the Nut was justifiable. But what about sealing those entrances? Taking no prisoners? Was that justifiable? Could he deem that essential? What was that but revenge? Revenge for all the times District 2 Career tributes mocked and tortured their way to victory. Revenge for living so large, with such a degree of self-importance while the rest of them starved and rotted. Revenge for staying loyal to a monster.

But he served a monster too. Even now, years on, those dreams hadn't left him. It was what pushed Ran away from him, and Neva after her. It pushed them all away. His weapon, what he made. What Coin used. But she couldn't have used it if he hadn't made it. How essential was that bomb to the war? One like that, one that killed children and medics. One that lost her.

His mother knew something was wrong. Tried to comfort him, tried to encourage him, just as she always did. She was always his support those days after the Games, when the Star-Crossed Lovers returned. When he had been whipped and bared his soul to a girl who couldn't or wouldn't reciprocate. When he watched the Quell on TV and saw something that changed his relationship with that girl forever. But his mother couldn't help him here. Just Ran couldn't, or any of the others.

His family were treated fine in the District. But for that one brick, they got along with the people of District 2, and Rory and Vick and Posy excelled in school, grew into remarkable people. It was just him, the target of so many frustrations. He resented their hatred, and yet he felt it so keenly.

It would have stayed like that, that cold, empty feeling in him brought on by the revelation and realization of the enormity of what he had done.

But perspectives shift, and sometimes all it takes is another person to show you that.

Cressida arrived with a film crew to take a look at how Panem was healing. She was taking a look at every District. Something else for Plutarch to cram the airwaves with.

He had to be interviewed of course, he had been in the District since the process began, had overseen so much of it's progress. He kept his responses brief and to the point. She tried to coax more out of him, but there was little he was willing to give.

When he was asked about the people of District 2, he hesitated for the first time in answering.

"Firm and resolute," he finally said. "Loyal to each other."

Cressida wrapped it up then, and stayed to talk for a little while after. She was a keen person, could see and perceive things others wouldn't be able to see. He supposed you'd have to be, to do her line of work.

"If you don't mind me saying, you don't look so good." She was blunt too.

"Not all of us have time to get the latest Capitol fashion cleanses or whatever done to us," he bit back.

"Such a shame too, you were a handsome guy," she continued playfully.

"My job demands a lot of me. I don't have the luxury of travel or relaxing," he grumbled. She just laughed in response.

"Still the same in that regard though, serious as ever," she said. "You know, if you're going down a path you don't like Gale, you can always turn back."

"We can't turn anything back. Nothing can be taken back, nothing can be made to last."

"Maybe not, but we can always change."

"And what would I need to change into?"

"That's up to you. A guy like you, you could be anything you wanted," she said. She made to leave when he didn't respond, but stopped when he finally replied.

"Have you seen her?" He held his breath after asking.

"Yes," Cressida said carefully, knowing full well who he meant.

"How is she?"

"I couldn't say. She doesn't want cameras near her, and I wouldn't interview her either." He nods at her response, still waiting on what he knew was inevitable.

"She's… not alone."

Somehow, it didn't hurt as much as he expected.

The next day, Gale requested a transfer from Paylor. She offered him a promotion, a job in the Capitol. But he clarified. He would stay in Two. But he wanted a different kind of work. She didn't seem surprised, and Gale wondered if her sending him to Two of all places was deliberate.

He would study first. District 2 was where they trained soldiers and made weapons. Some of the most advanced engineers in Panem worked there, and he would study under them. Over time, he could work in civil engineering. Building where there were ruins. Work that could take him to the Capitol and Four and Eight, all ravaged by war and in need to rebuilding of their urban centres.

What he needed now wasn't the snare, or bow, but the paintbrush. To nurture and create instead of destroy. Penance, or maybe simply just out of a sense of duty to himself and Panem. He didn't know which. But for the first time in ages, he smiled.

* * *

Gale Hawthorne had faced mobs, Peacekeepers, insurgents, mutts, and explosions, and yet even after all that, he could not help but feel nervous. His wife patted his hand gently, somehow aware of exactly what he was feeling. She was a woman of District 2. The best woman in the world. Warm and calm and hard working, and not unlike his mother, she sometimes teased him.

He had to wrap up, not just for the chill outside, but people tended to recognize their Labour Secretary on a train. He had to be careful.

The train took him to District 12, and he was overcome when he arrived. 25 years was a long time. Plenty of time for things to change.

What struck him the most was just how different it was. The houses were old and rustic in design and build, but neatly painted and solid. There was so much space between things, the town know more of a small series of clean cobbled streets than a dense, crowded, dusty centre. There was a small town square with a market, memorials to the dead he observed solemnly, schools, and places of mourning and prayer.

Small factories were bunched outside of the town, medical supplies manufactured and packed there. Roads that led out of town led to fields and forests, and there was no longer a fence.

It was beautiful, but it wasn't home. Everything was neater, more colourful. The ash wasteland he had last seen was gone. As was the coal caked District of his boyhood. This was a different District 12, and he was a stranger in it. Would remain a stranger in it, he wasn't there for long.

His friend Thom had received him, hosted him and his wife at his house. Not a shack like in the Seam, but a proper house, with several bedrooms. There wasn't much to say between Gale and Thom, but the silence was companionable.

He stayed only a day in the District, visiting the places that were once significant to him. The following morning at the train station, he and his wife waited before their private train was to head off. Not a fruitless wait, because almost against his wishes, they appeared. At first they simply looked at one another.

Peeta greeted him first. Shook his hand, smiled warmly. There were wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, but Gale knew he had the same. Then he introduced himself to Gale's wife. Peeta gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He inquired about the children quietly, his wife telling him that they had stayed in District 2 with their uncles and aunts. She inquired about their own, and Peeta mumbled a brief answer. The train was whistling now and ready to depart. Gale looked past Peeta and saw her.

She looked well. The scars were there, but faded. Wrinkles like her husband, right by her eyes, and some silver strands just like him. She was curvier, more well fed he supposed. She looked good.

He had wondered for some time what he might feel should he have ever laid eyes on her again. Pain? Desperation? Familiarity? Fear, regret, anger?

It's almost jarring how little he actually does feel. It's almost like gazing at a stranger.

But there's still some of his old friend in her. Because when she meets his eyes, she nods, just slightly. And it almost brings tears to his eyes. He returns the gesture, and after a brief farewell to Peeta, he turns back onto the train, his wife following shortly after.

She hugs him when they sit next to one another, again, understanding exactly how he feels without words.

And Gale weeps and smiles and holds his wife. Because forgiveness feels like an old wound finally setting just right.

* * *

 **Whew, and there we go. I hope that wasn't too bad. I haven't written in years.**

 **I'm not actually a huge Gale fan, but I don't wish him ill. I think it's more than realistic for him to struggle a little with what happened, and then find a way to move on. Just like everyone else has to in the series.**


End file.
